


Look Up

by Beneath_the_Trees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Day 1 Provisions, Desert, Desert Keith Week 2018, Gen, Light Angst, Memories, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 17:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beneath_the_Trees/pseuds/Beneath_the_Trees
Summary: Keith grew up in the desert, surviving there with his dad. He knew what to look for, what to eat and drink.With the hollowness in his chest pushing him forward, memories were bound to follow him to the usual foraging grounds his dad would take him to.





	Look Up

Keith looked out over the desert unsurely, the remnants of his childhood home leaving his chest feeling even more hollow and empty. He couldn’t stop losing those he cared for, could he? First a mother he didn’t remember, then his father, and now he’d lost Shiro as well, to the very thing that they had been looking up to their entire lives.

He shook his head, chasing away the bad thoughts and instead turning to face the dusty innards of the shack that once stood beside a home.

On impulse, he came running here from the Garrison after packing his things. His gut carried him here on the back of his father’s—well, his, he supposed, thanks to Shiro’s quick thinking and pleading with the garrison and people at the home-- beat up hoverbike with nothing more than the bag of his clothes and anything he could swipe from Shiro’s vacant room in the hour he had given himself to get out after punching Iverson square in the eye.

Seeing the sorry state the shack was in after a decade of not being touched for more than repairs Shiro helped him make to the fire-damaged home made his heart squeeze painfully, vague memories coming to the surface of his father looking over papers and maps at the couch and coffee table while Keith played or read in the corner; albums his dad kept locked away only to stare at now and again. Now, the coffee table was chewed and rotted, the couch just as worn and destroyed; caked in a layer of dust and sand.

With a sigh, he made his way into the other rooms, checking the state of all the cloths and mattresses, and keeping an eye out for any pests that might have taken root in the abandoned building. Surprisingly, none of the blankets or sheets crumbled to dust in his hold or had too many holes.

The small kitchen, on the other hand, had food that was past expiring and water that was trying to grow algae or coated in rust from the tap. Some of the canned food was still good, but there wasn’t enough to survive more than a couple days. He frowned, tapping his fingers idly against the steel of the sink before making his way back outside. He walked towards the small stone structure he remembered his dad using as storage, opening the door and checking through each bin he found. Most of it was his dad’s old fireman gear or other clothes and— _bombs_?

He stared at the crumbling knapsack, holding one of the nearly flat circles in his hand and dragging his gaze back to the label written on the box. Slowly, Keith turned it over, studying every little part of it. It was surprisingly heavy, and he didn’t recognize it as something the garrison ever issued. Quite frankly, he didn’t even recognize it as something the _army_ issued. He shook his head, pushing that thought to the side and setting the unknown, possible explosive, back in its box. He pulled down another box, grunting slightly from a heaviness he hadn’t expected. Opening it, he was relieved to see some of the plant and animal life books his dad had around the house when he was younger.

Carefully, he lifted a couple of the books from the box, thumbing the top one open. The pages were brittle and yellowing; the desert heat doing nothing to preserve them properly despite them being only a few years older than Keith himself. Still, they were accurate, and the pictures of plants Keith didn’t recognize on sight were in good condition. He’d be able to use these to find food and water with ease.

“Alright Keith; you have very little food and pretty much no drinking water except the water sack you filled from the Garrison,” He murmured to himself, standing and going back to the doorway to look at the midday sun. “Probably an hour or two of strong daylight left.”

Keith fell silent, running through a plan in his head. Wait unlike the sun went down a bit further and the desert began to cool, go for the cacti heavy areas and collect as much as he could. Set traps. He bit his lip, leaning out of the doorway and looking at the tree not too far away from the shack; if he remembered correctly, he’d seen his father collecting seeds from the tree when they didn’t have time to drive all the way out to town and needed flour, for whatever reason.

Until the sun went down, though, he’d get around to finding any animal traps that still worked. If he found even one, Keith would be able to catch some kind of animal for meat. In a few days, after the Garrison stopped any manhunt they sent out for the run-away cadet, he’d go to town and find a job so he could get propane for the camp stove in the kitchen and clean water for drinking without running the tap dry getting rid of any rust. The water with algae in it could be cleaned and boiled back into drinking order, if he was really desperate.

\----

The setting sun was dyeing the sky a pink and yellow that reminded Keith of the time Shiro caught him out here when he was 12, running from the orphanage and trying to make his way back home on a hoverbike too big for him at the time on some slim chance he could survive in that burned down catastrophe.

Only this time, there was no one chasing after him or for him to chance across by accident.

He was all alone on his trek towards the mountains and hills, where Keith knew most of the cacti tended to grow. He kept an eye out for any plants he could forage from or animal dens he could set traps on later, after he gathered enough materials to make them.

At the first sign of cacti, Keith pulled the hoverbike to a stop and leapt off the seat, pulling his knife from his belt and crouching down to carefully taking hold of one of the pads. He cut it at the base, smiling as he sheered off the needles and placed the meat of the pad in his bag. He also cut the fruits of the prickly pear off and but them in another bag.

He lost himself in the motions, remembering a time when he’d do this with his father; collecting the fruits and leaves of cacti to take home before wandering further out to find the highest vantage point to see the stars or sunrise.

_“Daaaaaddddddd, come on!”_

_A deep chuckle resonated through the air as Keith’s father climbed off the hoverbike Keith had already leapt from, the small boy bouncing around on the balls of his feet. Why did his dad always have to take his time? If he moved even a_ little _faster, they’d already have a prickly pear or agave plant dismantled and packed away to make all sorts of things with._

 _Of course, if his dad would just_ let him use a knife _, Keith wouldn’t be waiting at all for his dad and they could have already gotten a head start._

_“Calm down, Keith!” His father scolded almost playfully, smiling at his son as he passed by to crouch by the plants. “We have plenty of time to get what we need and make it to our usual spot.”_

_“Yeah,_ or _we could have already gotten two plants done!”_

_Keith’s dad raised an eyebrow, amusement glinting in his eyes. “You don’t even know how to properly shear the needles.” He stated, patting the warm sand next to him as a sign to join. “Come here; I’ll show you.”_

_Keith cheered, rushing over and his hands on his father’s thigh as support while he watched his dad work while he explained just what to do._

_“Now then, can you tell me what a Saguaro looks like?” His dad asked suddenly. Keith gave him a flat look, pointing to the single tall cactus in the distance._

_“They’re pretty much the only other cactus here, dad.”_

_His dad chuckled, shaking his head. “There are plenty others, but you’re right. Prickly Pear and Saguaro are the two main cacti in the area. Now do you know any other plants around are edible?”_

_At that, Keith felt his cheeks heat up and his gaze fell away from his dad’s. “Um…”_

_A rough hand, slightly sticky from the sap of the pad he was working on, landed on his head and ruffled Keith’s hair, making him look up again. “That’s alright. We’ll get around to memorizing those soon, bud. Until then, we’ve always got the books.”_

_Keith nodded, feeling a pout start to take its place on his face as they walked to the next cacti at the thought of needing a book to identify any of the plants out here. Who wanted to have a book weighing them down if something was chasing them or they were experiencing heat stroke and needed water? He_ lived _out here; he should be able to identify them all like his dad!_

_“How long until I don’t need the book anymore, though?”_

_Keith’s dad barked out a laugh, looking down from where he was carving a hole into the spine of a Saguaro. “You’ll always need a book, Keith.” He explained, reaching into his jacket’s pocket and pulling out a small flip notebook. “The size just depends on how much information you need.”_

Keith wished he had that notebook with him now. He, thankfully, just needed enough food at the moment to last a couple days at the most, so he didn’t bother bringing any of the books, but he could barely remember what plants were and weren’t edible aside from the ones he’d always known; his schools and the kids in the home didn’t really need or use that information, so it had all but drained away after his dad died, and he was positive his dad’s notebook died in the fire with him.

He frowned, glancing up at the starry sky as he packed away the jar of water he gathered from one of the Saguaro cacti into the bags slung over the hoverbike. The stars were as familiar and innocent as they’d always been, even back when he was a child, and as they twinkled into existence he wondered if he should find the same mountain his father would take him to on these journeys and watch the stars. Maybe….

Maybe he could find Shiro among the twinkling galaxies.

“ _Did you know your mother belongs to the stars?”_

_“She does?”_

_His dad nodded, an odd expression on his face as he pointed towards one of the swirling galaxies above them. “She’s there, y’know. Watching us; protecting us. Somewhere in that galaxy.”_

_Keith frowned, sitting up and looking at his dad skeptically. “…How do you know?”_

_His dad smiled, sighing softly as he continued looking at the stars. “I can see her, and if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to, too.”_

_He could see his mother?_

_The thought spurred Keith’s gaze back to the stars, the small boy barely blinking as he leveled the sky with a stare so strong it could have turned it to stone._

_His mother did not appear in the galaxies spiraling overhead that night. Or any other night afterwards._

The unbidden memory hit Keith like a freight train; slamming into him so hard he physically flinched away. It made his heart ache all over again, and he quickly looked away as bitter loss stung the back of his tongue and hardened his heart.

 _No_.

Keith shook his head, clearing it as he climbed back onto the hoverbike and made his way back to the shack. The hollowness in his chest returned full force as his thoughts turned to Shiro; he’s out there, somewhere, lost among the very stars Keith’s entire life seemed to revolve around. Keith fought the urge to turn his head skyward. He so badly wanted to look; see if he could find the sign his dad somehow managed to see but Keith was left in the dark with every time he tried to see either of his parents there in the sky, but he already knew what awaited him.

Why should he look for something that he couldn’t see?

Mind made up Keith started the hoverbike back up, making his way back to the shack so he could get something in his stomach and finally go to sleep. The entire trip was silent aside from the hum of the hoverbike, and although Keith strolled through the desert instead of raced, he kept his eyes planted firmly on the desert in front of him.

He was done looking up at the stars.


End file.
